The Camping Shop (Season 4)
Author: R R Haywood
Date: 2019-06-27 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Zombie Apocalypse
Description: The Camping Shop. An Undead Short Story THE UK'S BEST-SELLING HORROR SERIES By Washington Post, WSJ, Audible & Amazon #1 best-selling author RR Haywood. Creator of the smash-hit time travel series - Extracted and the #1 Audible sci-fi space-romp crime-heist thriller romcom The Worldship Humility It has been Twenty One days since the outbreak of an intelligent parasitic virus turning people into hosts, and Howie is busy fighting back. His team might be the only group able to save humanity - but a gruesome discovery makes them question why they are trying to save a species that only ever causes
Publisher: 1899 Inc Ltd

THE CAMPING SHOP. AN UNDEAD SHORT STORY

RR Haywood

RRHaywood

Contents

Also by RR Haywood

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Also by RR Haywood

Copyright © R. R. Haywood 2020

R. R. Haywood asserts his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

All Rights reserved.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All characters and events, unless those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead (or undead), is purely coincidental.

The inclusion within this story of the characters “Pea and Sam” are used as a prize in a competition and although to a degree they are based on the real persons they remain fictitious characters within a work of fiction and the author asserts his full rights to amend, delete or change those characters.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Design, Cover and Illustration by Eddyart.

Also by RR Haywood

A Town Called Discovery

The #1 Amazon Time Travel Thriller

A man falls from the sky. He has no memory.

What lies ahead are a series of tests. Each more brutal than the last, and if he gets through them all, he might just reach A Town Called Discovery.

*

EXTRACTED SERIES

EXTRACTED

EXECUTED

EXTINCT

Blockbuster Time-Travel

#1 Amazon US

#1 Amazon UK

#1 Audible US & UK

Washington Post & WSJ Best-seller

In 2061, a young scientist invents a time machine to fix a tragedy in his past. But his good intentions turn catastrophic when an early test reveals something unexpected: the end of the world.

A desperate plan is formed. Recruit three heroes, ordinary humans capable of extraordinary things, and change the future.

Safa Patel is an elite police officer, on duty when Downing Street comes under terrorist attack. As armed men storm through the breach, she dispatches them all.

'Mad' Harry Madden is a legend of the Second World War. Not only did he complete an impossible mission—to plant charges on a heavily defended submarine base—but he also escaped with his life.

Ben Ryder is just an insurance investigator. But as a young man he witnessed a gang assaulting a woman and her child. He went to their rescue, and killed all five.

Can these three heroes, extracted from their timelines at the point of death, save the world?

*

THE WORLDSHIP HUMILITY

#1 Audible bestselling smash hit narrated by Colin Morgan, star of Merlin & Humans.

#1 Amazon bestselling Science-Fiction

“A rollicking, action packed space adventure…”

“Best read of the year!”

“An original and exceptionally entertaining book.”

“A beautifully written and humorous adventure.”

Sam, an airlock operative, is bored. Living in space should be full of adventure, except it isn’t, and he fills his time hacking 3-D movie posters.

Petty thief Yasmine Dufont grew up in the lawless lower levels of the ship, surrounded by violence and squalor, and now she wants out. She wants to escape to the luxury of the Ab-Spa, where they eat real food instead of rats and synth cubes.

Meanwhile, the sleek-hulled, unmanned Gagarin has come back from the ever-continuing search for a new home. Nearly all hope is lost that a new planet will ever be found, until the Gagarin returns with a code of information that suggests a habitable planet has been found. This news should be shared with the whole fleet, but a few rogue captains want to colonise it for themselves.

When Yasmine inadvertently steals the code, she and Sam become caught up in a dangerous game of murder, corruption, political wrangling and...porridge, with sex-addicted Detective Zhang Woo hot on their heels, his own life at risk if he fails to get the code back.

*

THE UNDEAD SERIES

THE UK’s #1 Horror Series

Available on Amazon & Audible

“The Best Series Ever…”

The Undead. The First Seven Days

The Undead. The Second Week.

The Undead Day Fifteen.

The Undead Day Sixteen.

The Undead Day Seventeen

The Undead Day Eighteen

The Undead Day Nineteen

The Undead Day Twenty

The Undead Day Twenty-One

The Undead Twenty-Two

The Undead Twenty-Three: The Fort

The Undead Twenty-Four: Equilibrium

Blood on the Floor

An Undead novel

Blood at the Premiere

An Undead novel

The Camping Shop

An Undead novella

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One

D ay Twenty-One

He risks a look back, but the motion throws his balance off, and he stumbles into the side of an abandoned car. A glimpse of the interior and the body slumped in the driver's seat. The head a mess of blood and bone from the driver impacting his face on the steering wheel. The airbags deflated and hanging. The front end crumpled against a lamppost.

The boy pushes off, staggering away. His feet snagging on chunks of debris. Litter everywhere, whipped up and dumped by the huge storms that break the days of searing heat. It's only been three weeks since the outbreak started, but already, the world is so very different. Reginald said it's the cessation of humanity that has caused the weather to change.

‘Ah, yes, the precipitous discontinuance of the primary anthropoid species discharging not only their own effluvium, but their lack of vehicular activity, and the noxious fumes associated with such usage, one should imagine, caused this rather abrupt change to our normally inclement climate.'

Mo Mo loves listening to Reggie when he explains things. Mind you, he doesn't understand half of it. None of them do, but then, they've got Charlie to dumb the sentences down, ‘He means there aren't so many people breathing and farting, or driving cars now.'

Mo Mo really likes Charlie. This is surprising, given that Mo was a near-feral kid from a rundown council estate, whereas Charlie was privately educated and the captain of the under 21's England hockey team, but then, Mr Howie said it doesn't matter what you were, only what you are now. Clarence was in the parachute regiment. Blinky played hockey with Charlie. Paula was an accountant. Marcy was a waitress. The lads were new army recruits, and Mr Howie was a night manager for Tesco and worked with Dave, an autistic man with skills Mo never thought existed outside of Hollywood movies.

A squelch underfoot, and he groans at his boot pressing into the remains of a body. A howl down the road, and his head snaps up at the seething mass of human forms running from a junction. Dozens of them, and all ages and sizes too. Young and old. Thin and the fat. All of them with red, bloodshot eyes and hands clawed with fingers like talons. Mouths drooling with infected saliva, and faces twisted in pure aggression. Reginald said the infection pumps them full of chemicals and stops them feeling pain or ever growing tired. They don't bleed as people do either. They clot fast and heal quickly. But then, they aren't the only ones with that ability now.

The boy sets off once more, tugging the cowl of his hooded top over his face to wipe the sweat away as he builds up to another sprint. His boots crunching the stones, and crap covering the road, while the air fills with the snarls of the infected and the sound of their feet drumming over the tarmac.

He glances back again, making sure not to lose balance this time and sees the road behind him now full of infected. A burst of speed, and he looks left and right, searching for a way out. He veers sharply to the right, leaping and sliding over the front of another crashed car. To a doorway, and he heaves at the handle on a UPVC door, cursing foully when it refuses to yield.

He runs on, skittering and wild. His arms flailing to keep balance as he sprints past broken shop windows and bodies lacerated with glass. Some with obvious bite marks. Others with limbs missing. He runs across the road, crying out when he sees the infected have closed the gap. To another door, but again, it's locked.

‘FUCK IT!' he sets off, pumping his arms and legs. Glancing back frequently, and every motion of his form telegraphs his fear to the infected behind. The way he looks back and cries out in fear. The virus within them watching the lad running. A thing of evolving intelligence that burrows so far into the brains of the hosts that it takes their spark of life for its own. Gaining thoughts and notions. Becoming an entity.

That's why Mr Howie said they have to kill it before it gets smart enough to start using weapons instead of just chucking zombies about. Then, Reginald said they aren't actually zombies as they're not dead, and besides, zombies are made up, and these things are most definitely real. That then sparked the whole "are they zombies" conversation again which always ends with Cookey asking if zombies can get erections which in turn takes the discussion back to the start.

But whatever it is, it's gaining fast. The boy risks another look back and bounces into the side of a van this time. He sprawls out, scuffing his hands and knees, then he's up and off again. Wind-milling his arms and taking the next corner at full speed, running into a long straight road bordered with more busted in shops and stores. Another junction way down the street, and with a few seconds gained ahead of the horde, he gives it everything he has. The ungainly motion vanishing as his body seems to prime and become fluid. His feet blurring. His arms balanced. His head up, and his eyes fixed on that junction ahead.

Alleys go by. Access points to side streets and lanes that could lead to hiding places, but he ignores them and focusses solely on running. The hooded top now soaked with sweat and clinging to his head, obscuring his vision. It's too thick and making him too hot. He gasps for air. Trying to get oxygen into his lungs to fuel his muscles, knowing the infected behind will never feel the burn in their legs from lactic acid.

The pain and heat become too much. His motion, once more, becoming ungainly as he slows from a sprint to a run, to a jog, and finally, to a heavy, defeated walk, with his chest heaving for air. He stops in the middle of the junction and bends over to brace his hands on his knees. His body sagging. He glances up to see the horde still have the whole length of the street to go before they reach him.

But then, that was the plan all along, and the music starts as the boy stands fully upright, drawing the zip down and, finally, casting his heavy top off. Sixteen years old. Arabic, with short, dark hair. His body lithe and fit, with a pair of pistols strapped to his tight, black top. A young man that can even sprout a couple of hairs on his jaw. Like for reals. But then, Clarence always makes him shave them off. Which isn't fair, and he can't help the grin showing as Mr Howie walks slowly out from the side, dragging a double-headed axe behind him. His dark, curly hair framing a face full of bruises, and those dark, brooding eyes staring out as time seems to slow to a crawl with everything in slow-motion.

Clarence comes from the other side. A huge man mountain with a bald head. Dragging a thick metal chain over the road with sparks shooting out. His motion slow and deliberate. The music pumping out.

Cookey comes out behind Mr Howie. Blond hair. Blue eyes. An axe in his hands. His face a mask of grim determination as he rolls his head and widens his eyes. Corporal Blowers at his side. An eye-patch over one eye. An axe in his hands. His own face contorting with expressions. Nick comes out with Clarence. Tall and chiselled. His head low so he can look up with dramatic flair.

Charlie behind him. Mixed race. Lean and beautiful. A machete held at her side. Blinky with Cookey and Blowers. Short, stocky, and with ginger hair in two bunches poking up like antennas. Those same expressions adorn their faces. All of them gurning dramatically in the way of dramatic people doing something highly dramatic as the distorted music blasting from the cheap speakers cuts off, making them all turn to see Paula next to the stereo with her arms folded. ‘Stop pissing about and get on with it,' she snaps.

‘We're doing a slow-mo walkout,' Howie calls, while still moving slowly, ‘Reggie's filming us on the drone,' he adds while dramatically pointing to the drone flying above the horde.

Paula turns to look at the open side door of Roy's van and Reginald leaning back on his chair with a sheepish smile, ‘I'm filming them. On the drone.'

‘Right,' Paula says, arching an eyebrow before looking over to Marcy and Roy laughing at the others, until they spot Paula giving that look and, suddenly, decide to look somewhere else, ‘Dave, just get on with it please.'

‘Yes, Miss Paula,' Dave says, a small built, wiry man with a shaved head, and he walks out from the side at normal speed and comes to a stop to stare down the street at the coming horde. A second to assess and see it all the way only Dave does before he draws his pistols and starts shooting. The gunshots loud and sharp as the bullets whip out into the front ranks of the charging infected. Each one a kill shot. His accuracy and placement near perfect.

‘You lot drive me up the sodding wall,' Paula says, striding out while pulling her rifle forward on its sling. ‘Pissing around all the time…' she lifts the rifle, aims, and pulls the trigger, then tuts again when it fails to go bang.

‘Safety's still on,' Clarence points out helpfully.

‘Yes! I know. Thank you, Clarence.'

‘What about the slow-mo thing?' Cookey asks, still moving slowly as Paula aims and pulls the trigger again, which still fails to make the rifle go bang.

‘Fuck's sake. Blinky, kill those zombies please.'

‘They're not zombies,' Reginald calls from the van.

‘Yes, sir! Miss Paula, Sir,' Blinky says, snapping out a salute that makes her ginger bunches waggle on her head. She pulls her rifle around, aims, flicks the safety off, and sets to work. The louder, deeper noise adding to the sound of Dave's pistols firing.

‘So, err…are we not doing the slow-mo thing?' Cookey asks as more SA80 British Army assault rifles join in, sending bullets spinning down the street. Slamming into the horde with bursts of pink mist coming from skulls blown apart. Bodies flung back and more spinning off to the sides as the infected are shot down. An awful thing to see. An awful thing to do, and to be involved in such a thing just three weeks ago wouldn't have been believed. But these are different times, and this a new world with new rules.

It takes only seconds to kill more than fifty people until the air grows silent and the guns stop firing. Each of them lowering their rifles, apart from Cookey, still gurning a dramatic face and moving with slow exaggerated care.

‘Mate, we're done,' Blowers says, scratching under the eye-patch covering his ruined eye. A scar from a previous battle. It doesn't hurt, it just itches. But then, they've all got the same thing as the infected, or something like it anyway, ‘Cookey, you bellend, we're done.'

‘Yeeees, corporalllllll Bloweeeeerrrrrssssss,' Cookey says in his best dramatic, slow-motion voice as he finally gets to the front and overplays pulling his rifle forward while staring up at the drone that promptly flies away, ‘Oi, Reg! Bring it back.'

‘My name is Reginald. Not Reg,' Reginald says, popping out from the van to guide the drone down to his feet, ‘I am not an East London gangster, nor do I have a twin brother.'

‘Oh,' Cookey says, nodding slowly, ‘Yeah, I don't know what that means.'

‘Twat,' Blowers mutters.

‘Why wasn't my axe sparking?' Howie asks, glaring over at Clarence's chain.

‘Wrong type of metal probably,' Roy says. The team medic and a gifted archer, ‘And I'm guessing Clarence's chain was striking small chunks of stones of a type that reacted with the friction and weight which, in turn, created the sparks, whereas the axe has a smaller and lighter surface contact.'

‘Fuck me. You even make sparks sound boring,' Blowers mutters.

‘Why wasn't my rifle working is more the question,' Paula says, peering at her rifle before handing it to Mo, ‘Can you make it go bang please, sweetie.'

‘Yeah, sure,' Mo says.

‘Yes, not yeah,' Dave says.

‘Yes,' Mo says.

‘He's fine,' Paula says to Dave. ‘You're fine,' she tells Mo.

‘Done. It'll go bang now,' Mo says, handing it back.

‘Thank you, honey,' she says, giving him a kiss on the forehead, ‘Make sure you drink lots, it's very hot. Was the running okay? Not too tired or anything, are you?'

‘Favouritism,' Cookey says, rolling his eyes, ‘but, wow, how cool was that? I bet we looked awesome. Marcy, did we look awesome?'

‘Erm, I wouldn't say awesome?' she says thoughtfully, ‘More like completely shit.'

‘What took you so long, Mo?' Nick asks innocently as they all fall silent and look over at the young lad.

‘They were slow as fuck, bruv. You get me? I's like having to stop and look like I was checking doors and shit…and I pretended to trip over.'

‘Did you fuck!' Blinky says as they burst out laughing.

‘Did you pretend to bounce off that car too?' Blowers asks.

‘Or that body you stepped on. Was that pretend?' Cookey asks.

‘Wankers,' Mo says, realising they were watching him on the drone.

‘Right, get sorted, we're moving out in two,' Howie calls. Twenty-seven years old, and now the co-leader of the only known group fighting back against the infection to try and reach a cure to save humanity. All of them infected with what appears to be a mutated version of the virus that keeps them going during the constant and sustained fighting in towns looking more desolate and broken by the day.

‘Come on,' Paula calls, geeing them along. The other leader of their group. An accountant before this. Career driven and dedicated. Now, she mothers Mo, nags the lads, fancies Clarence, and wishes she wasn't with Roy while organising everyone with many, many lists.

They start loading up in the back of the Saxon, armoured personnel carrier. A hybrid training vehicle with a double cab taken from Salisbury Plains military training centre.

Everyone cramming into the bench seats. Shoulder to shoulder. The air hot. Faces sweating. Howie in the driver's seat, and Clarence up front, his bulk simply too big for the back seats. Roy driving his van behind them, with Reginald in the back at his desk, studying maps and plans while plotting ways to wage war against a foe many times their size and with a seemingly infinite supply of hosts to throw at them.

‘All in?' Howie calls.

'All in,' Paula replies. Doors slamming shut. Engines firing up, and they head off along the main High Street bordered with broken shops where the bodies lie festering in the street alongside crashed and burnt-out cars.

A few seconds later, and the Saxon comes to a sudden stop, with the doors slamming open, and the team bursting out.

‘What's going on?' Roy calls, his voice urgent as he drops from his van. His rifle gripped and ready while looking for the reason they stopped.

‘That stinky bitch,' Cookey yells.

‘So gross,' Marcy gasps, wafting a hand under her nose.

‘What is?' Roy asks, peering into the Saxon to see Blinky sitting inside, leaning over with one arse cheek raised as the stench hits, ‘Jesus, Blinky! What did you eat?'

‘I so needed that, doc,' Blinky says earnestly.

‘Fucking disgusting,' Nick calls.

‘Get bent, pencil dick,' she shouts back.

‘Blinky, that was gross,' Charlie says.

‘Fuck off, Charles. Like you never fart.'

‘I do not fart,' Charlie says primly.

‘You so do! I fucking heard you like a million times.'

‘I really don't fart,' Charlie tells the others with her hand covering her nose as another wet rasp sounds out.

‘Blinky!' Cookey yells, moving further away.

‘Better out than in,' Blinky says, ‘And Reggie said that farting makes it rain anyway.'

‘I said no such thing,' Reginald says, peering out from the back of Roy's van, ‘But I will say we don't have time to dillydally. They know we're here, chaps. They'll be watching us right now and bringing more.'

‘I'm not getting back in that thing for a very long time,' Marcy says, pointing at the Saxon.

‘What would you rather, my dear? Deal with an unpleasant smell or an army of infected people?'

‘Zombies,' Howie coughs into his hand.

‘They're not zombies,' Reginald says primly.

‘Fine,' Marcy says, ‘Blinky, get in the van with Reggie.'

‘Good lord, no,' Reginald says quickly.

‘Actually,' Paula says, staring across the street, ‘Are you seeing what I'm seeing, Mr Howie?'

‘I think I am, Miss Paula,' Howie says.

‘Just what we need,' Paula says.

‘Absolutely,' Howie says.

‘Supplies,' Paula says, staring at the camping shop.

‘Coffee,' Howie says, staring the other way to the café across the road.

‘Eh?' Paula says, turning to see what Howie was looking at, ‘No. We need supplies.'

‘Roger that,' Howie say, ‘You get the shopping, and I'll get the coffee.'

‘Or,' Paula says, ‘Here's a plan. We get the supplies and then get out of here.'

‘Right,' Howie says, giving her a confused look, ‘Sorry, where does the coffee feature in that plan?'

‘There is no coffee.'

‘Ha! Good one,' Howie laughs, grinning at a stony-faced Paula, ‘I thought you said there's no coffee there for a minute.'

‘There is no coffee. Reginald said we need to get on.'

Howie nods and rubs his chin. ‘If only we had a former member of the elite parachute regiment to strategically guide us…' he adds with a double-take at Clarence.

‘Ah, now,' the big man says deeply, ‘As military advisor, my tactical suggestion is that we replenish and seek nourishment when we can…and grab a quick coffee.'

‘Seconded,' Corporal Blowers says, raising a hand.

‘Thirded,' Nick says, lifting a hand.

‘Fourtheded…eded,' Cookey says, trailing off.

‘Just say agreed,' Charlie whispers.

‘Agreed,' Cookey says brightly as Blinky farts inside the Saxon again.

‘Err…I think I've shit myself,' she calls.

‘I give up,' Paula says, knowing when she's defeated, ‘Mr Howie, sort your team out, please.'

‘Righto. Clarence, you get the camping shop open. Nick and Roy, you two get some juicy power into the coffee machine in that café. Blinky, wipe your arse and get cleaned up.'

‘Sir! Yes, sir, Mr Howie, sir,' Blinky shouts. ‘Charles?' she adds in a shouted whisper. ‘I don't think I have any clean undies. Can you ask Miss Paula, sir, if she has any spare ones?'

‘Erm,' Charlie says, looking over at Paula.

‘I'm right here,' Paula says, ‘Blinky, I'm right here.'

‘Charles, did you hear me?' Blinky whisper-shouts again.

‘They're in your bloody kit bag,' Paula calls.

‘Paula said there's some in your kit bag,' Charlie relays.

‘Cheers, Charles! I didn't want to ask Miss Paula, sir, cos she seems a bit angry today.'

‘Sure,' Charlie says politely, smiling at Paula who rolls her eyes for the millionth time today as the others move out. Nick and Roy heading over the road to the café with Cookey and Blowers. Dave watching the road with Mo while Clarence heads towards the camping shop. A wide, double-fronted building with long plate glass windows and a display full of outdoor things, all artistically arranged in front of thick camouflage netting obscuring the view of the interior. He checks the door and finds it securely locked.

A second to bunch power, and Clarence explodes out, ramming his right boot into the mid-section of the solid wood and metal door that holds fast. He kicks again. A huge man generating a massive force, and it takes several more kicks before the door finally slams open with a thud and displacement of air rushing out, making Clarence stagger back from an instantly recognisable smell, ‘CONTACT!'

The team reacts quickly. Roy, Nick, Blowers, and Cookey, all turning away from the café to sprint back. Blinky rushing from the back of the Saxon. Everyone else grabbing weapons, while Dave and Mo draw pistols and run over with Howie.

'Breaching,' Dave says, going in front of Clarence. Mo on his heels with his pistol drawn and ready for close-quarters fighting like Dave taught him. Howie pauses, waiting to hear gunshots or shouts. Nothing comes, and he sweeps in. Treading high over the busted door and chunks of plaster. The stench hits him first. A wall of smell. Hot. Wet and cloying. Metallic too. The stench of blood and shit. Of body odour and innards. The transition from bright daylight to the gloomy interior making it hard to see anything, but that smell is obvious. Flies too. Rising up at being disturbed, and he swats one away while screwing his face up, coming to a stop between Dave and Mo, both aiming into the store and waiting for their eyes to adjust.

'What the fuck?' Howie whispers, trying not to gag as he turns back to see the material hanging down inside the windows. Thick camouflage netting and plastic groundsheets pinned up to prevent anyone from seeing inside.

‘Coming in,' Clarence says, pushing in through the broken door as that stench hits. A wall of noxious smell triggering a reflex of memories that rush through his mind. Afghanistan. A few years back. Trapped in a sustained firefight and surrounded by freshly killed bodies slowly festering in the high summer heat. Bowels voided on death. Urine and bile. The contents of stomachs spilling out with innards. That exact same smell now, and he reels back a step, turning away to grimace as Howie starts pulling the sheets down, bathing the room in glorious rays that show every detail in perfect clarity.

‘Boss?' Blowers calls from the door, waiting to breach with the others stacked up and ready. He sweeps inside. Rifle up. Feet high. Ready to react. The smell hits. The sight hits. ‘Fuck me.'

Frowns outside. Cookey goes in with the others. All of them coming to a stop. Gagging and coughing from the smell. Flinching at the sight as their brains try and take it all in.

A wide store. The interior both long and deep, giving plenty of space to erect display tents of various sizes and have camping equipment on show, and Howie glances back to the window. Realising they were switched on enough to block the view of the interior.

‘What's going on?' Marcy asks from the door. A stunning woman with a beauty that sometimes makes her seem cold and aloof. She flinches at the sight, taking seconds to absorb it all and seeing tents have been pitched with camping stoves set up. Signs of cooking. Pots, pans, plates, cutlery. Tins of food. Water, fizzy drinks, and boxes of teabags. Clothes folded inside the tents, and yet more strewn about the place.

‘They were living here,' Howie says, more to himself. Maybe working in a camping shop gave the staff a better appreciation for preparing, and he figures some of them arranged to come here. They'd have known it would make a good base to hide out in and wait for the authorities to react.

‘What's that in the middle?' Marcy asks, looking at a table and chairs set up in the middle of the room with a big sign pinned up.

“Demarcation Zone”

‘Demarcation? Isn't that from North Korea?' she asks.

‘Yeah,' Howie whispers, ‘kind of…'

‘It means a dividing line,' Charlie says quietly, ‘a space not owned or controlled by either side…'

Marcy nods. Seeing more signs pinned up inside the middle section, ‘No weapons will be carried during negotiations, and both sides agree to non-abusive, bilateral discussions to end the war…Jesus.'

‘The war?' Clarence asks with a wretched look on his face, ‘This isn't war. There's no honour here…'

‘Why are you all so quiet?' Paula asks, walking in and coming to a dead stop at the sight, ‘Oh my god…what the…'

‘I need to change my undies,' Blinky announces a few seconds later as everyone else just stares at the sight inside.

‘Keep an eye on Reggie,' Howie murmurs as Blinky goes out.

‘Demarcation zone?' Paula reads.

‘It means a dividing line,' Marcy says.

‘I know what it means,' Paula says.

‘I didn't. Charlie told me.'

Outside, Reginald peers from his van as Blinky comes out of the shop. ‘Whatever is going on?' he asks.

‘I'm changing my undies cos I shit myself.'

‘I meant in the outdoor shop.'

‘No, I did it in the Saxon.'

‘I'm aware of that, Blinky. My question is what is happening in the outdoor shop?'

‘Oh. Err, some bodies and stuff, but Marcy said it was North Korea,' she says while pulling her trousers down and clocking the look of horror on Reginald's face, ‘Mr Howie said I had to watch you, and I'm gay, so it doesn't bother me if you see my fanny.'

‘Good lord! I can assure you that your sexual orientation has no bearing on my reluctance to see your genitals,' he says in alarm, rushing across the road in fear of seeing Blinky's bits.

Boots off. Trousers off. Undies off. Arse cleaned, and Blinky hums away while getting herself sorted. Naked from the waist down and in full view of anyone who cares to look. Not that it would bother Blinky if they did. Very few things in life actually bother Blinky, and being seen naked isn't one of them. Nor is the whole end of the world thing. In fact, the only thing that Blinky really doesn't like is losing. Which is why she excelled at hockey and is now as happy as a pig in shit from finally being allowed be to excessively and joyously violent. She also adores the lads, is in awe of Mr Howie and Dave, and still has her best mate Charlie with her. Best life ever. Fact. Apart from being slightly scared of Paula.

She finds the new undies in her bag and tugs them on, finally covering her modesty before freezing at the footsteps scuffing the ground across the road. She turns to look. Seeing a single infected emerging from a door. An old man with wispy hair. Blood over his bare chest. She looks up and down the street, not seeing any others, then glances over to the store as the old guy starts running. She thinks to shout out, but then Paula does seem quite grumpy today, and besides, it's only one old man. She shrugs and grabs her knife as the old boy steams in and side-steps while stabbing his neck. Turning to watch him drop with his artery opened. She shrugs again and starts looking for her trousers, then cocks her head over as another infected staggers from a doorway and starts running at her.

‘Why didn't they just leave?' Blowers asks, breaking the awful silence inside the store. ‘The door's right there…' he adds as Reginald walks in.

‘Chaps. What's the delay? Oh, I say. Gosh, now, that is a thing, and rather ripe too, I might add,' he says, pulling a handkerchief from a pocket to press over his mouth and nose. ‘Ah, I see now. Demarcation. North Korea. I did wonder what she was talking about.'

‘Seriously,' Blowers says, shaking his head, ‘They could have just walked out. Why stay in here?'

‘Fuckstick fuckheaded fucking fucker,' Blinky mutters outside, gripping an infected female by the throat while stabbing her repeatedly in the chest. She throws it down over the old man and steps back with a satisfied nod. A gargle from behind, and she spins fast, slashing another infected across the throat. ‘Fist me, fucknuts,' she says as it gurgles, drops, and dies.

Five killed within a few seconds. More coming, and Blinky scratches her backside, belches, and glances over to the camping shop, figuring that maybe she should get some help. She goes to the Saxon, ditches the knife, pulls her axe out, and looks back to the infected with a grin.

‘They just look so young,' Paula says quietly, trailing off into silence while outside, in the street, behind her a severed human head flies up in the air, ‘They had everything they needed. Food. Water. Shelter…I don't get it…'

Howie nods and stares into the room, seeing it has effectively been split into two, equal halves, with one obvious camp formed on each side. One on the left, and one on the right. Two walls made from long, heavy, metal shelving plinths, stacked end on end with a gap in the middle forming the demarcation zone.

That both sides have made camps is obvious. That the two sides fell out is also very bloody obvious. For a start, both have tents pitched at the far ends with their openings facing away from the other side. Just that alone is something to see. Two clear tribal formations within one big room, but that is not the thing keeping them all silent.

It's the bodies.

People hacked apart with small axes and stuck with knives. Blades taped to sticks to make spears that have been thrown about. A man on his back with two of them in his stomach, and a knife sticking from one eye. Blood everywhere. Splattered on the walls, the ceiling. Pooling on the tiled floor. Bodies in the middle section too, beside the table and chairs. A woman with torn clothes lying in a pool of blood. A knife in her hand, and a dismembered penis in the other. A man at her side. A ragged, bloodied wound where his dick once was. Limbs are torn apart. Entrails like string sausages. Drag marks where injured people tried to crawl to safety, only to be stabbed or bludgeoned.

Howie takes it all in. Seeing nearly all the bodies are young men, apart from the one woman in the middle.

He glances over to the right side, and two sets of bras hanging from a wire near the body of another young man hanging from a rope thrown over an exposed joist. A hood over his head. A smear of shit oozing from the back of his shorts. He looks over to the other side, and another man hanging with a bag over his head. This time naked, with cut marks to his body, and his hands tied behind his back.

‘How many, Dave?' Howie asks quietly without taking his eyes from the awful sight.

‘Ten, Mr Howie,' Dave says, the only one not to show a reaction. ‘And they're all dead,' he adds.

Howie finally looks at him, thinking this would be the time for a quip. Something like no shit or what gives you that idea? But he doesn't. He just nods and turns back to the carnage. Wondering why they're all staring at it. Like it's a joke, maybe. That these people will suddenly jump up and laugh. Except they won't. Because they're dead.

The world is over. Billions have died from an intelligent virus trying to take over the world, but life still goes on the same as it always has, and people will be people. They will squabble and fall out. They'll bicker and take offence, and form sides, and do anything to prove they are right. One day they'll weep together and share food. The next they will pull hoods over the heads of their mates and hang them to die, before raping each other amidst the carnage of war.

‘Why didn't they just leave?' Blowers asks again, struggling with the concept of it all.

‘People get drawn in,' Clarence says with a wretched expression, ‘Fanatical even.'

Silence inside, while outside, Blinky cleaves an arm from an infected woman.

‘Don't overthink it,' Marcy says, her tone firm enough to make a few look over, ‘Gawping at this shit will just mess your minds up.'

‘What did the infection say to us again, Reggie?' Howie asks.

‘Something tells me that is a rhetorical question,' Reginald says.

Howie looks at him, ‘It said people broke the world.'

‘They didn't break the world. They broke a camping shop. And actually, if you take the bodies away and clear the blood up, the shop will probably be just fine. So, in actual fact, they only broke each other.'

‘You know what I meant. They,' he says, pointing at the bodies, ‘represent the people we're trying to save.'

‘And your point is what?'

Howie shrugs, ‘I have no point. I'm just saying it.'

‘Great,' Reginald says.

‘It's not great. It's shit,' Howie says, ‘We keep going out to get fucked over so dumb twats can stab each other with homemade spears. Seriously. Why the fuck are we risking our lives?'

‘Stop right there,' Reginald says sharply, ‘As much as it pains me to say, Marcy was right for once. Do not overthink it.'

‘Aw, thanks,' Marcy says.

‘Wasn't a compliment,' Reginald says.

‘Don't overthink it?' Howie asks, ‘Don't overthink it? What the fucking hell are we supposed to do? Underthink it? What's the fucking point? Literally, what is the arsing, wankfilled, cunting point?'

‘What do you think happened?' Paula asks, still taking it all in.

‘Oh god, don't ask him that,' Marcy groans, ‘He's already ranting.'

‘I WILL FUCKING RANT,' Howie shouts, ‘Fuck this… How many people have we lost so far? Too fucking many. And for fucks like this to…to bloody stab and hang each other. No. Fucking no. I mean it. Fuck it. The war's over. The fucking zombies can have it…and by "it" I mean the world and all that's in it.'

‘Indeed,' Reginald says, ‘And my first point, once again, is that they are not zombies. My second is that this is not what you think it is.'

‘It bloody is,' Howie says as everyone looks from Howie to Reginald, then back again.

‘You think they had a petty squabble and split into two sides that chose to commit war and kill each other in lieu of just getting along,' Reginald says.

‘They didn't do it in the loo, mate. They did it in here. But I bet, if there is a loo, it's full of bodies too…'

‘No,' Reginald says.

‘Yes,' Howie says.

‘No,' Reginald says again.

‘Yes!' Howie says again, ‘Look at the hangings. One on each side. Both with hoods over their faces, and that one's hands are bound. I bet one side caught some fucker, hung him, then the other side did the same. Quid pro fucking quo. How is that not cuntish? Literally…two sides. Two camps. You can literally see it happening.'

Two

Howie's Flashback #1

L iam was at home on the Friday night it started. He was bored. He made tea and got comfy on the sofa with a big bag of cheese puffs, and booted his Xbox up for a few games of PubG. Except, he couldn't get online, and so, as gamers often do, he tapped into the internet on his phone and navigated to the server reports pages. But they were also down.

In fact, pretty much everything was down, and after eating more cheese puffs, he braved the evils of social media, which is where he saw the outbreak unfolding in Europe. News reports. Mobile phone footage. Posts. Threads. Updates and comments. A pandemic. A virus. People biting each other and becoming deranged.

He got hold of Dean and told him what was going on. This was it. The thing they'd planned and joked about for years was happening. The what they would do if a nuclear / zombie / vampire / Russian / Alien invasion / something-else-really-bad / end of the world event thing happened. And the plan had always been to head for the shop.

Twenty minutes later, Liam was waiting inside the store on his own, fretting that maybe he was being a dick, and it was all a joke or something.

Then Dean arrived and said he saw people going nuts at the far end of town. Ashley turned up and said he saw someone being run over, but the guy got up and tried biting the car windows. Ashley was with Karl and Tom, the other full-timers. They were all shaken and scared. Then, a few minutes later, Tyrone got inside. A part-timer. He said his mates from uni were all saying it was real. Colin and Tim, the other part-timers, also arrived, bringing their mates Adam, Kev, and Mark. All of a certain type. Somewhat nerdy. Somewhat geeky. Not alpha males. Not gym-goers. Not aggressive types. Nice guys. Polite.

‘We'd better lock up,' Dean said.

Liam nodded while feeling really very terrified. They all were. All of them silent and pensive. Tearful too. Liam locked the back door using the key. Dean pushed the bolts in. Ashley made sure the windows were fastened. Then they jumped out of their skin at hearing a knock on the back door, and all shushed each other in the way of many people shushing each other, thinking there to be a zombie knocking on the door. They stayed silent. Hoping it would go away. It didn't go away but, instead, knocked again, making them all jump and panic.

‘Liam! It's Alison…'

Alison only started work at the shop a few days ago, and Liam even felt a bit daft messaging her on WhatsApp.

Hi Alison! It's Liam. From work. So sorry for messaging, but there's like a zombie thing happening (no joke), and I wondered if you wanted to come and hide in the shop with me. Not just me! Dean too, and maybe some others. So, like. Just let me know. Bye!

‘Wait!' Tyrone said as Dean and Liam started unlocking the door, ‘How do we know she's not a zombie?'

‘I'm not a zombie,' Alison said outside, having heard Tyrone who then shrugged and figured it would be safe.

‘Alison!' Liam said on seeing her outside.

‘I can't believe this is happening,' Alison said, looking as terrified and shaken as the others, ‘I've brought my friend Kathy. Is that okay?'

The first night was weird. The shock of it all rendered them mostly silent. Some of them cried. Others just stared. Liam was upset, too. So was Dean, but both were supervisors, so they felt a need to show leadership and offer comfort to the others. Alison was lovely too. A young woman with a ready smile. Friendly. Pleasant. Chatty, and very pretty. Kathy, however, was not the same as Alison. Not so pretty. Not so slim and not so chatty and friendly either.

They saw their first proper atrocities within a couple of hours. A woman ran past the window screaming. They all jumped up, thinking to help, but a group of infected people took her down. Alison screamed. An infected heard the noise and slammed himself against the window. More joined him. They all panicked, even though the window was made from toughened safety glass. Liam said to run out the back door. Then more people ran by screaming outside, taking the attention of the infected away from the window.

It was deeply traumatic, but it made them realise they needed to take steps to ensure their own safety. And it also gave them something to do. Liam said to get the camouflage netting up. Dean said you can still see through it. Alison suggested using the big groundsheets from the tent section. A plan formed, and they sprang to action. Setting a watch and hiding when the infected went by, until their window was entirely covered. Then they hid and wept as they listened to the awful screams outside.

But that was only on the first night, and after that, they didn't really hear anything at all, and their entire world became the store, the tiny staff room, and the single toilet out the back. That's all they had, but it was all they needed.

‘Okay, we just have to hide out and wait for the authorities to react,' Liam said on the second day. The inside gloomy and dark, with pinpricks of light shining through tiny gaps in the sheets. Everyone still silent and shocked.

‘What if the authorities don't react?' Dean asked, ‘I mean, like, we saw it on the net. It's everywhere.'

The silence hit again. The reality now stark and real.

‘Hope for the best, plan for the worst,' Ash said, quoting the company motto painted in huge words over the back wall.

‘Did you just make that up?' Alison asked with a weak attempt at humour. A few smiles. Strained and awkward, ‘I err…I think we should plan to be here for a while. You know. Sort rations and…'

‘We've got enough food for years,' Dean cut in, ‘It's all high-energy, high-calorie food for hikers and mountaineering.'

‘That's good. Right?' Alison said. ‘I think we can do this. I really do…' she added, looking about the shop, ‘We've got everything we need right here. I think we can make this work. Honestly.'

‘There's thirteen of us,' Dean said, ‘There's only one toilet and, like, no bathroom.'

‘We stock travel showers,' Tyrone said, ‘We can rig one up in the staffroom and make it into a wash area.'

‘We've got loads of camping stoves,' Liam added as that rush of positivity flooded out from Alison. ‘We can rig tents up, share the cooking. There's plenty of room if anyone wants quiet time, and like…err, you two ladies can like totally have a private area for, you know…changing and things,' he said with a deep blush as the other lads also blushed at the mere mention of female nudity. ‘Like, none of us are perverts,' he mumbled.

‘Aw, you guys,' Alison said, ‘Come on. We can get through this. It'll be like a new society with new rules where everyone shares everything. Yeah? What do you think?'

Three

‘I 'm telling you,' Howie says in the shop while waving his arms at the bodies and gore. ‘I bet they all promised to set up a new society, and everyone would share everything and, like, it will be totally amazing and super special. And I even bet they got through the first week, or maybe even ten days before the crap started. People living on top of each other. No natural daylight. Long hours in a hot, stuffy, airless room where every nuance gets magnified. Where every look becomes the gossip of the day. Someone shit on the side of the toilet bowl and didn't clean it up. Someone pissed on the seat and didn't wipe it. Someone isn't doing their share of cooking and cleaning. Some dude not washing his armpits and stinking the place out. Polite comments becoming barbed jibes and sneaky digs. People getting snarky and forming alliances. Hey, did you see what so and so did earlier? He, like, totally made himself a brew and didn't ask anyone else. OMG! Let's split the room in two halves. I'm telling you. That's literally what happened…'

* * *

Howie's Flashback #2

‘Hey guys,' Tyrone said, sidling over to Allie, Kathy, Liam, and Ash hanging about in the batteries and torches section, ‘Like, I'm so fuming right now.'

‘What happened?' Allie asked, all of them instantly full of concern with every nuance and utterance becoming magnified and examined for meaning.

‘Did Mark shit on the toilet seat again?' Kathy asked, nodding angrily. ‘I bet he fucking has. Or Kev has pissed on the seat, dirty little shits.'

‘No, like way worse than that,' Tyrone said, looking about and lowering his voice. ‘You know Dean, right? Guess what he did? He only made himself a cup of tea and, like, totally ignored everyone else.'

‘No!' Alison said with a look of shock.

‘Yep. I was sitting right there with Tom and Karl.'

‘Hey,' Tom said, walking into the batteries and torches section with Karl, ‘Are you telling them what Dean did? He totally made a cuppa and ignored us.'

‘No!' Alison said, still in shock.

‘I've literally had enough,' Kathy said.

‘Same,' Liam said. ‘And Kev isn't washing either. He stinks so bad.'

‘Do you know what?' Alison said, ‘Honestly, I'm just going to set up on my own.'

‘What, leave the shop?' Liam asked in panic.

‘No! In here, but away from them. Like a new section. You know, for clean people that don't shit on toilet seats.'

‘Can I come?' Ash said.

‘Yeah, course,' Alison said, ‘Like, maybe we should all do it. You know, just saying.'

‘I'm in,' Liam said, ‘We'll just split the room in two and use the big metal shelves to make a wall so they can't come in.'

* * *

'And then they put that fucking wall up,' Howie says, pointing to the wall on the right side, 'But those wankers over on the left were like screw them and their wall. We'll build our own wall. And I bet they even argued over who was using what shelves and fucking about over inches of ground. Not fighting though. Oh, no! People don't fight straight away. They have to get all whipped up and incensed and convince each other they are right, and the other side are wrong. That's what people are. We're tribal, and your own tribe always has to be the best – and there's no way the left side would think they were in the wrong. God, no. They'd be all righteous and outraged, and like, we're only retaliating because they started it. And with those walls up, they wouldn't be able to see each other, and I bet that made them paranoid as fuck.

* * *

Howie's Flashback #3

‘Seriously, they started it,' Dean said a few days after the wall went up. ‘And Liam pushed me,' he said for the hundredth time since being pushed.

‘I saw that,' Mark said as the others nodded, all full of righteous indignation.

‘Honestly, I was only grabbing a section of metal shelves before they could get them all, and Liam was like hey, that's mine. And I was like, calm down, Liam, you're not the only supervisor here, cos you know I'm a supervisor too. And, he, like totally barged past me.'

‘I saw it,' Mark said again, ‘Dean went flying.'

‘I went flying,' Dean said.

‘Hit his elbow on the wall plinth holding the neck scarves.'

‘Banged my elbow,' Dean said, showing them the rapidly fading bruise on his arm again while glaring suspiciously at the wall. ‘What are they doing?' he asked Kev who was perched on a chair peering over the top.

‘They're all at the far end whispering,' Kev said.

‘Wankers,' Dean said.

‘Wankers,' Mark repeated as the others nodded.

‘There's movement,' Kev said as Tyrone appeared over the other wall, staring at Kev.

‘THEY'RE SPYING ON US,' Tyrone shouted.

‘YOU'RE SPYING ON US!' Kev yelled.

‘WANKERS,' Dean shouted.

'FUCKERS,' Liam yelled as his side all ran over with both groups hurling insults and missiles – soft ones. Toilet rolls. Socks. Nothing too heavy and hard. A progression. A build-up.

* * *

'They started off lobbing bog rolls at each other. Calling each other pissflaps and wankfaces, and dirtbags. Then, before you know it, somebody threw that empty can,' Howie says, pointing at an empty can on the floor, 'And the other side were like hey! That hit so and so. And the thrower was like so? Fuck him. And the escalation gets whipped up and worse and worse, until it's full-on proper all-out fucktarded war.'

* * *

Howie's Flashback #4

‘You know the plan, right?' Alison said, taking cover behind a big display table turned on its side. All of them in protective mountaineering hats and elbow and knee pads. Cuts and bruises to faces and arms. Knives taped to broomstick handles and Nordic walking poles. Big ice axes gripped and ready. Survival knives, bats, stick, and clubs. Everyone consumed with a burning hatred that dominated every second of their existence. A rage unlike any other slowly being released as the limits to morality were pushed back so far that they ceased to exist, especially, since Ash was hit by a spear thrown by Colin, puncturing one of his lungs. That's when Liam shouted for a truce. For a negotiation. Dean agreed, and they shouted terms over the walls, with both sides agreeing that no weapons would be carried during negotiations. They even made a sign for it.

'Okay, ready?' Alison said. They set off. Ash wheezing hard, struggling to walk. They reached the wall and spotted Dean and his army waiting on the other side. All of them silent. Seconds passed. Liam gently lowered his big ice axe. Dean lowered his spear. The others followed suit. Putting bats, knives, and weapons down. They eased out. Glaring at each other. At people they knew and shared lives with. All of them cut. All of them hurt from the war. They moved to the table. Liam and Dean sitting down. Alison staying close to Liam, waiting for the right time, waiting for Colin to step out from the other side.

'GRAB HIM!' she yelled out as Tyrone, Tom, Karl, and Kathy all rushed to drag a screaming Colin into their side. Dean shouted to give him back while Mark, Adam, and Kev got ready to invade, listening to Colin's screams as he was dragged to the far end and beaten with sticks. A bag over his head. A rope about his neck. 'Hang him!' Alison shouted. They had to do it. It was the only way to show the other side they were serious. They had to escalate and show strength. So, they hung Colin.

'COLIN!' Dean screamed out, rushing behind Kev, Mark, Adam, and Tim as they launched an invasion to try and rescue Colin, but the defence was too strong. Missiles thrown. Adam went down with a spear in his chest, and Karl ran out from Alison's side, intending to club Adam in the head, but he was grabbed and overpowered, then dragged across the demarcation zone while being stripped naked. Stabbed and cut. Shouts going up. Missiles and spears going both ways. Karl's hands tied. A bag over his head. A rope about his neck, and he was hoisted up. It had to happen. Dean had to show them he wasn't weak, and anyway, they started it by killing Colin.

‘WE HAVE TO END THIS NOW,' Alison roared, holding her club high over her head, ‘ATTACK NOW!'

‘KILL ‘EM ALL,' Dean yelled.

* * *

‘And that's it. Bang,' Howie says, ‘Up it went. Both sides going at each other and some dirty, seedy, filthy, little creep probably trying to rape that woman in the process, who then cut his dick off before they all died. End of. End of story. End of it all. End of humanity too, because am I fuck taking my team back into more battles against the zombies to save people who will just go back to doing this shit.'

Silence in the shop. Everyone thoughtful, with most figuring that what Howie said was probably spot on, and outside, Blinky rips the entrails from an infected man and wraps them around the neck of an infected woman before back-kicking into another one lunging from behind, and all in her knickers and vest, with a massive grin, and her ginger bunches waggling about.

‘Do you know what I think happened?' Paula asks.

‘No! And we don't want to know,' Marcy says, looking to Reginald for support in her endeavours to get them out of the body-strewn shop, but the small man stays silent as he studies the room.

‘I'll tell you what I think happened,' Paula says. ‘So, there's maybe one or two women here and a whole load of young lads, and probably, only one toilet. They got out-shitted is what happened…'

‘Out-shitted?' Nick asks as the men frown in confusion.

‘Yep. Out-shitted. Honestly, you're all like chimpanzees flinging poo about and not washing unless something gives you soap and pushes you into a shower. That's what happened, and the poor girls couldn't cope with it…'

* * *

Paula's Flashback #1

‘You know the plan, right?' Alison said, taking cover behind a big display table turned on its side. Both of them in protective mountaineering hats and elbow and knee pads. Kathy with a big knife taped to a Nordic walking pole in one hand and a metal dustbin lid in the other. Alison gripping a big ice axe and a heavy bat, and both ducked as a missile went overhead. Kathy nodded. Grim-faced and ready as they peered up to see the lads all leaping about. Screeching noisily. Scratching their chests and armpits. All of them filthy from nearly three weeks of not washing. ‘They're getting worse,' Alison said, ‘It's only a matter of time before they actually start eating their own shit. We have to kill them. It's the only way… We can't risk them breeding.'

She stopped talking as Liam scurried by and stopped to stare at them with big doe eyes. Slack-jawed and as stupid as a house-brick, but there was something there. A hope that perhaps if they tried again, they could give them all soap and show them where the shower was, and if truth be told, they both felt a lessening of the violence inside. Until Liam flung his shit at them while grinning proudly as though he did something awesome and super clever.

* * *

‘Which is when they charged out,' Paula says, ‘To kill the shit-flinging, dirty, unwashed sods for the sake of all humanity. Which also explains why that woman cut that bloke's dick off too. Because he was probably waggling about like you all bloody do, trying to poke it in things and pissing all over toilet seats. Seriously. The amount of times I've said to wipe up. Is it really that hard? And don't get me started on not putting the toilet seat down. Actually, forget the shit-flinging chimpanzee stuff. Just the bloody toilet seat would have been enough…'

* * *

Paula's Flashback #2

‘I can't take it anymore,' Alison said, her heart thudding in her chest. Her vision closing in at the sides, ‘I can't. It's too much…'

Kathy nodded. Feeling the same. Nearly three weeks of asking, begging, and pleading. Kathy and Allie even took them into the toilet, one by one, to show them the hinges on the back of the seat and how it goes down, as well as up. They produced diagrams and instructions. They offered incentives and bribes. They did everything possible, but Alison went to the toilet and found the seat up again. That made her angry. It made her mad, but she stayed calm for the good of humanity. Then, she lowered the seat and found a dribble of piss on it. That was it. Right there. The point of no return, and those two long-suffering, poor souls grabbed some knives and did the only thing they had left, and started cutting dicks off.

* * *

Silence in the shop as Paula finishes speaking.

‘Right,' Howie says, ‘Err, is this like some kind of warning here?'

‘Yes,' Paula says emphatically.

‘Cool. Only I'm not getting it. What's the issue again?'

‘Yeah I'm a bit confused too,' Blowers says.

‘Were they not flushing the bog or something?' Nick asks.

‘I give up,' Paula says, looking at Charlie, then at Marcy, ‘I actually give up.'

‘Good! Then we should go,' Marcy says, ‘because we're in a room with lots of dead bodies, and it's getting weird.'

‘Actually, I don't think it happened like that at all,' Blowers says as Marcy sags while Blinky runs backwards past the window swinging her axe at the horde chasing after her, ‘Here's what I think happened…'

* * *

Blowers' Flashback #1

They hunkered down behind the big display table turned on its side. The air thick with tension. Eleven brave, courageous, and handsome lads, all wearing mountaineering hats and knee and elbow pads. All of them marked in some way from their campaign of war against the zombie things outside. Ranging out to partake in hearty, righteous battle. To rid the world of all evil. To fight The Good Fight while being brave and courageous, and really, quite handsome. But this, this was too much.

‘Lads, I'm sorry,' Liam said. Steely-eyed and brave, and courageous, and handsome too. His good men gathered about him. Solid men. Dependable. Dean nodded manfully. Tyrone gritted his teeth. Kev squeezed his eyes closed as he willed himself not to cry. Ash shaking his head with a pang of great sadness, ‘We can't keep going. Not like this…it's too much.'

His words stuck home, and to the last, they all bowed their heads with that great sadness I mentioned a minute ago.

‘I wish there was another way through this,' Liam added.

‘Mate, you did your best,' Dean said, ‘Honestly, you're like the best leader ever.'

‘Fact,' Ash said.

‘Agreed,' Tyrone said while the others nodded.

‘But I've failed you,' Liam said, really upset at thinking he had failed them.

‘No!' they all said as the beast once more roared into the darkness of the store, making them tremble with fear.

‘WHO LEFT THE FUCKING SEAT UP AGAIN?' Kathy screamed. Stalking the aisles with a big knife taped to a Nordic walking pole, ‘And why wasn't the washing-up done? And who left dirty boxers on the floor? And why aren't the towels folded and other generic shit that nobody actually ever gave two fucks about…'

‘I shall kill them, I shall,' Alison hissed, evil and quiet. Skulking in the shadows. A beautiful woman, but that beauty hid an obsession for a level of cleanliness that was impossible to achieve, ‘I shall slice and dice them, I will. Cutting off their dickies for weeing. Oh yes, my lovelies. My preciouses. Come to Alison, you will. Get nagged to death, you shall…'

The fear those two women drove into the men was greater than they could handle, and they were brave lads too, and courageous, and handsome, but they panicked as Kathy and Alison locked onto their scent.

Liam gulped in fear. Dean hardened himself. Not like his willy, I don't mean hard like that. I mean like his manner. Tyrone too, and the others. This was it. They had to do it.

‘FOR QUEEN AND COUNTRY!' Liam yelled.

‘FOR ALL MANKIND,' Dean shouted, and the lads all killed each other.

* * *

‘You mean like mercy killing,' Nick says.

‘Yeah,' Blowers says, clicking his fingers at Nick, ‘Those brave, courageous lads all killed each other out of mercy.

‘Right,' Paula says slowly.

‘Two questions,' Charlie says, ‘Why has this turned into a men and women thing, and why did one of your women turn into a cross between Gollum from Lord of the Rings and the little weird one from Star Wars?'

‘Actually, that's not what happened,' Cookey cuts in.

‘Oh god, no,' Marcy says as everyone else also groans.

‘I've got this,' Cookey says, ‘Right…this is what happened…

* * *

Cookey's Flashback #1

‘Okay, we just have to hide out and wait for the authorities to react,' Liam said on the second day as they gathered at the counter, all of them scared and silent.

‘What if the authorities don't react?' Dean asked, ‘I mean, like, we saw it on the net. It's everywhere.'

‘Hope for the best, plan for the worst,' Ash said, quoting the company motto painted in huge words over the back wall.

‘Did you just make that up?' Liam asked with a weak attempt at humour. A few smiles. Strained and awkward, ‘I err…I think we should plan to be here for a while. You know. Sort rations and…'

‘We've got enough food for years,' Dean cut in, ‘It's all high-energy, high-calorie food for hikers and mountaineering.'

‘That's good. Right?' Liam said. ‘I think we can do this. I really do…' he added, looking about the shop, ‘We've got everything we need right here. I think we can make this work. Honestly. And ladies, I can assure you that we are all honourable men, and your vaginas are safe here.'

* * *

‘Jesus, Cookey,' Blowers says as the others groan.

‘Shut up! This is my flashback,' Cookey says, ‘Anyway, so it was like…'

* * *

‘Aw, you guys, you're the best,' Alison said as Kathy nodded in agreement, ‘But, hey, listen, I know it's early, but seeing as you mentioned the whole vagina thing. At some point, we need to talk about mating to continue our species.'

‘Oh, wow,' Liam said. ‘This is very soon to raise this. We are all honourable men and would never think of such things,' he added as the other guys all agreed. Cos they were also, like, really nice. Apart from that one guy. Mark. He was seedy as anything.

‘I can make babies with you, Alison,' Mark said, with his hand a bit too deep in his pocket.

‘What Kathy and I propose is that you all fight to the death, and whoever is left alive can come over to our side and have a threesome...'

* * *

‘I'm telling you,' Cookey says earnestly. ‘It was a weird sex club thing, with knockout stages. Like Ninja Warrior…' he nods earnestly, with his blue eyes twinkling at the joke as he glances over to the shop and flinches at the sight of innards pulled from the stomach of a body, and his smile starts to fade. He looks over to the woman lying dead and the man next to her, and the two bodies hanging, and the terror they must have felt. Enclosed in a dark room that became their whole world, and the jokes suddenly seem cheap and wrong. He lowers his head. Feeling ashamed with a burn rising in his cheeks, and such is their closeness that none need to voice the sudden change in mood and energy. Seeing Cookey's normally jovial face become etched with remorse, and guilt that reaches out to all, that they are standing here, making up stories over the lives of people they never knew. ‘I'm sorry,' he whispers, ‘I shouldn't have said that.'

‘I said don't overthink it,' Marcy says. She frowns and shakes her head, inhaling slowly, ‘Sorry, but maybe Howie is right…'

Silence. Heavy and charged, and behind them all, Blinky runs back the other way past the window, grinning widely as she slashes out at the horde, still chasing after her.

‘Do we give up, then?' Paula asks quietly, now seeing what Howie means. ‘Is that what we want?' Silence again. Eyes averted, ‘Then it would have been for nothing. Everything we've done and been through…'

Howie stares at the room. His eyes dark and brooding, ‘I don't know. I just look at that and think why bother?'

‘To win, of course,' Reginald says, still studying the room.

Howie snorts. Shaking his head.

‘What you are seeing is a room full of bodies,' Reginald continues, ‘and your assumptions as to the causes are fair and just, and to a certain extent, they most likely hold degrees of accuracy, but your assumptions are also shaped by the horrors you have seen, and they’re not entirely correct. In fact. I would suggest that one side of this room are the types you would admire, and that under a different set of circumstances, you would honour them in the way you would do for anyone that shows great self-sacrifice.'

Howie looks from Reginald to the bodies, trying to see anything other than death and murder, and utter stupidity.

‘There were eleven men but only two women here,' Reginald says softly. ‘And both of those females occupied that same half of the room, and both occupied the same tent situated at the furthest point and behind the biggest barriers. There. That tent. The one filled with female clothing and underwear. Two bras in plain view. One smaller. One bigger…in a way, some of you were correct, as this was a sex thing, but it was also about so much more and not what you think at all…'

Four

Reginald's Flashback #1

‘W e've got loads of camping stoves,' Liam added as that rush of positivity flooded out from Alison. ‘We can rig tents up, share the cooking. There's plenty of places if anyone wants quiet time, and like…err, you two ladies can, like totally, have a private area for, you know…changing and things,' he said with a deep blush as all the other lads also blushed. ‘Like, none of us are perverts,' he mumbled.

‘Aw, you guys,' Alison said, smiling sadly at them, ‘Come on. We can get through this. It'll be like a new society. New rules. Everyone shares everything. Yeah? What do you think?'

They spent the day organising and quickly realised that thirteen people couldn't have a tent each. Some doubled and tripled up. Dean and Liam in one. The full-timers in another. The part-timers sharing. The other three lads – Mark, Kev, and Adam staying together. Alison and Kathy sharing too. Tribes within tribes. Stoves were rigged up. Food sorted. Torches filled with batteries. The staff room became the bathroom with a travel shower rigged up.

The first couple of days were nervous and filled with angst and terror, but not seeing the outside world soon encapsulated them into a micro-society cocoon environment that detached them from everything else. This was their whole world, and after that first couple of days, they started to relax and become close. Bonding and forming friendships. Sharing lives and talking about how things would be different and how they all respected and adored each other. They were good people that were lucky enough to find somewhere to hide, but they were also contained and trapped in a dark room, and within a few days, those stories started to become old, and the best behaviour they were on at the start soon wore off. No work. No structure. No reason to do anything. Stifling heat. Constant darkness, and the fear of the outside world. Families share small spaces, but they do so through familial love and bonds strengthened over the years, but these people did not have those connections, and so, every action became magnified and scrutinised.

The way Tyrone ate too loud. The way Mark farted and laughed about it. Urine on the toilet seat. Litter not picked up. The way Kathy belched after eating. Toothpaste smeared on the sink. Kev staring at Alison too much. Some of the others doing it too. Jokes getting too familiar. The way Dean kept stopping Alison to talk to her, touching her arm, invading her personal space, and that micro-society soon shifted to one of feeling trapped, where every action was scrutinised, and where every infraction became magnified.

‘Okay, okay. Come on, guys,' Liam said one week after the outbreak started, ‘We need to just go over a few things, you know, no naming names, nothing like that. But, like, to get back on track. Err, so, the first thing I'd like to suggest is a cleaning rota? How about that? One day each. Would that work for everyone?'

‘Why are you suggesting it?' Dean asked. ‘You're like, you know, not in charge or anything. We're both supervisors,' he added to a few voices quietly agreeing.

‘I'm not saying I'm in charge,' Liam said.

‘You're not in charge,' Mark said as Kev and Adam nodded agreement.

‘Yeah, I know. I just said that. I'm not in charge.'

‘Yeah, but, like, you think you're in charge,' Dean said.

‘I'm not in charge,' Liam said quickly, ‘This is, like, you know, a democracy thing.'

‘Then why do you keep calling meetings, telling everyone what to do?' Dean asked, emboldened by the nods and murmurs from his side. ‘Allie, you agree with me, don't you?' he asked, smiling and winking at Alison.

‘Why do you keep doing that?' Kathy asked him, ‘That wink. It's fucking creepy.'

‘What? It's cool. Me and Allie are cool. Aren't we, Allie?'

‘Sure,' Alison said politely, avoiding his eye-contact. It was starting to get weird. The way some of the lads were looking at her. Mark, Kev, Adam, and especially, Dean. They started off sweet and shy, but those smiles were getting harder, and those shy glances were starting to linger too. Kathy also noticed and was clinging to Alison constantly. Never leaving her side. Maybe she knew what was to come.

Time passed slowly too. The hours and days crawling along, broken only by the pattern of eating, washing, and sleeping. Dean, Mark, Adam, and Kev were constantly together.

‘Why does he think he's in charge?' Kev asked again from the far-left side amongst the shelves of food and fluids. He stared over at Liam being all matey to Colin and Tim while trying to tell them to pick their mess up. Kev hated that about Liam, ‘The way he's like, you know, being all friendly and sucking up, and saying do this and do that. It's driving me up the wall.'

‘Oh god, she's fit,' Mark whispered as Alison walked over to get some food for the evening meal, ‘Hey, let's make her jump again.'

They hunkered down and waited until she passed the aisle, then jumped out to grab her arms and tickle her sides with a joke that wasn't funny the first time a week ago. And those tickles were getting too grabby, with hands lingering a bit too much, and the boys crowding in too close, with Mark even bumping his groin into Alison's hip.

‘Err, hey, guys?' Liam called, ‘It's cool to joke about, but I don't think Allie's enjoying it so…like, you know, maybe not do that anymore.'

‘We're only playing,' Kev snapped with a mini flash of temper, born from seeing that Liam was right and that Allie was really not laughing, or even smiling. In fact, she looked quite scared, ‘Sorry. God. We won't touch your wife again.'

‘Chill out, Liam,' Dean said, scowling as he walked off.

Dean stopped tent sharing with Liam that night and took a bigger tent from the store to share with Mark, Kev, and Adam, and in such a closed environment, it was noticed by everyone, and was the topic of much gossip and speculation. Liam tried asking Dean about it when they were alone by the batteries section on the far-right side.

‘Are you okay, mate?'

‘We're not married, Liam. I can sleep where I want.'

‘No. I mean. Like, yeah, sure…but, I dunno, you seem different.'

‘Just chill out and quit nagging everyone. Fuck me, you're like a drone. Like always there watching everyone.'

It got worse after that. The attempts at flirting soon shifted towards harassment. Whistles. Nudges. Winks. Mark came up behind Alison and put his arms about her, saying he wanted a cuddle. He sniffed her hair, and she felt his groin pushed into her backside. She squirmed to break free.

‘Hey, listen, I really need a wee,' she said.

‘Ha-ha! That's cool. We can go together.'

‘Erm, like, can you just let go please. Mark, I said can you let go, please…okay, really. Just get off me.'

He held on for another few seconds with a quick tightening of his grip before stepping back with a grin. The boundaries pushed.

The strain and pressure were growing with two groups starting to form. Dean on one side. Liam on the other, but nothing too obvious. Everyone still mostly mingling and talking to each other.

That was until Kev and Mark accidentally walked into the bathroom while Kathy and Allie were in there.

‘THEY'RE FUCKING PERVERTS,' Kathy shouted a few minutes later as everyone gathered by the counter.

‘We didn't know you were in there,' Mark said.

‘Or busy,' Kev added with a snigger.

‘I told you. I bloody told you we were going in there.'

‘And err, sorry,' Kev said, holding a hand up, ‘But the bathroom is, you know, for washing? Not for fucking…'

That's when it came out. That Kathy and Alison were gay and in a relationship. And in truth, that was the first and only intimate contact they'd risked since arriving. Just a quick kiss and a cuddle. That was all, but right at the point, they barged in.

‘Are you like gay then?' Dean asked into the suddenly charged silence that followed. This was something new and exciting that changed the energy, but not for the better.

‘Mind your own fucking business,' Kathy said.

‘That's you fucked then, Liam,' Adam joked, nodding at Allie, ‘Or not. You've been trying to shag her since we got here.'

‘Err, I think we all have,' Dean said, earning more laughs, ‘Wouldn't stop me though…bit of girl on girl.'

‘You just sound sleazy now,' Kathy said.

* * *

‘Hang on, that's a wild leap of faith, isn't it?' Paula asks, ‘Saying they were lesbians.'

‘But they are,' Reginald says, ‘That deceased woman has a tattoo on her left inner wrist of two interlocking Venus symbols which denote her sexual orientation, plus, the sleeping bags in their tent are zipped together to make one bigger bed, and their tent is surrounded by the others. The right side were protecting those women. The left side wanted those women.'

* * *

Reginald's Flashback #2

Liam hoped things would settle down after the bathroom incident. He admitted to himself that he felt a bit gutted at learning Allie was gay, which meant he would never stand a chance. But not because he wasn't good enough as a bloke, but simply because she was not into men. And somehow, that turned the switch off in Liam's head. He still found her very attractive, but the sexual desire was greatly lessened. Ash felt the same. Tyrone still fancied the arse off Allie and thought about her while masturbating, but his sister was gay, and he understood how difficult it was. So his sexual fantasies remained firmly secret, and something for him alone. Karl and Tom also agreed. Both painfully shy and quiet, and that non-threatening, decent energy made Kathy and Allie feel safe.

The energy from the others, however, was an entirely different thing. Dean felt cheated by Allie being gay. Like he'd been denied something, and that weird, dark slight manifested into a sick humour, egged on by his new mates, Adam, Mark, and Kev. ‘We having a show tonight, girls?' Dean kept saying after the bathroom incident, ‘Give us all something to think about in the toilet.'

‘They should use oil,' Mark said.

‘And dildos,' Kev joked, ‘Eh, girls? Must get a bit boring using tongues.'

‘Pack it in,' Liam said.

‘Or what?' Dean said, and that air of menace ramped higher by the day, growing more assertive from the lack of consequences.

'GET OUT!' Kathy screamed the next day when, again, Mark, Dean, Kev, and Adam burst into the bathroom, trying to catch Kathy and Allie doing something.

‘This is getting worse,' Tyrone said to Liam later, ‘We've got to do something.'

Liam did do something. He took a bolt from the back door and fastened it to the inside of the bathroom.

‘You're a fucking spoilsport twat,' Dean said to him later, after trying to barge into the bathroom again and finding the door secure, ‘Allie's gay, Liam. She's not gonna fuck you now, is she?'

Putting the bolt on the bathroom door became a thing Dean used to whip his side up, and more days passed as the mood grew ugly and charged. A tinderbox waiting for a spark, ‘He's not in charge. He can't just put bolts on doors without everyone agreeing to it. Fucking wanker…'

‘Yeah, we didn't mean any harm,' Kev said. ‘We're only messing about, and he's making it all serious. I only wanted to see some boobs,' he added with a grin, earning sniggers and laughs, ‘It's not like we were gonna touch them or anything.'

‘It's just boobs,' Mark said, ‘Why can't they just show us? I'd show them if they wanted to see my willy.'

‘It's human nature, really,' Dean said, ‘Like, you know, we're only doing what we're programmed to do.'

‘Hormones,' Kev said, ‘It's not our fault we're horny.'

Words said as a joke that gained traction with like-minded young men, all harbouring growing obsessions, and that same sense of denial that Dean felt soon radiated out and became voiced.

‘Fucking selfish bitches,' Kev muttered, watching Allie and Kathy head off to the toilet later.

‘Yeah, right,' Mark said, ‘It's alright for them. What about us? And Kathy didn't even work here. I know we didn't either, but that's not the point. Hey, you know what we should do?'

It happened that night when everyone was asleep. Dean's side creeping over with hushed sniggers because, as Mark pointed out, you can't put a bolt on a tent. They gathered by Allie and Kathy's tent and slowly eased the flap open. The zip left undone from the stifling heat in the shop. The lads all giggling and shushing each other. Kev used a tiny keyring torch, but in the near blackness, it was enough, and there they were. Allie and Kathy fast asleep on their backs wearing only knickers and bras, and the sniggering stopped. The air suddenly charged and hard. The sight of female forms in partial nudity, and that bad, dangerous energy took a very big step as Kev slowly pushed his hand into his shorts.

Alison was the one that heard them. She woke quickly, startled by the light and looked out to see Dean and his group all staring in while touching themselves. She screamed hard. Kathy woke. Dean and his group flinched at being caught with cheeks burning in shame, but it was dark, and they had lust in their veins. They laughed it off and told the others to lighten up.

‘That's disgusting,' Tyrone said, ‘You'd get nicked for that.'

Kev just laughed, ‘What you gonna do? Call the police?'

‘Seriously, lads, that's enough,' Liam said, summoning courage, but Kev voicing that lack of consequence charged the air somehow, giving Dean an edge to exploit.

‘Ooh, he's getting all brave,' Dean said.

‘Fuck off, Liam,' Mark said, ‘Listen, Allie, we just wanted to see some boobs. That's it. Literally just some…'

‘What the fuck is wrong with you!' Kathy said, standing in front of Alison.

‘We're just horny,' Mark said, ‘I'm being honest here. We're men…'

‘We've got hormones,' Kev said.

‘It's not even our fault,' Dean said, ‘It's just boobs, ah, come on! We'd show you.'

‘This is a joke, right?' Alison said.

‘Nah, like, just quickly,' Mark said, ‘Like, get one out or something.'

‘Lads, Jesus,' Liam said, ‘Stop…'

‘Guys, that's not cool,' Ash said.

‘Oh, like you don't want to see her tits,' Kev said, ‘Tyrone, you even said you fancied Allie when we first got here.'

‘We'd all benefit,' Mark said, ‘Ha-ha! Like friends with benefits, yeah? Come on. Just like take your bra off for a bit.'

The boot hit him in the face, cutting his lip and making him stagger back as Kathy erupted. ‘GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM US,' she screamed out, grabbing shoes and kit, cans, and tins of food. Bottles of water, and flinging them hard at the lads, ‘FUCKING RAPISTS.'

‘You fucking bitch!' Mark yelled, fingering his bleeding mouth. ‘Just cos you're ugly and fat, you fucking dyke…' he grabbed the boot she'd thrown and launched it back, but it hit Ash instead, who grabbed it and threw it into the fray as missiles started going back and forth.

‘FAT LEZZER,' Kev screamed.

'FUCKING PERVERTS,' Kathy shouted back, grabbing a Nordic walking pole to swing about. Backs and legs hit with sticks. Heads hit by bottles. The two sides going at each other. Colin and Tim sided with Dean. Karl and Tom hid at the back, too terrified to do anything, until Karl was hit by a small bottle of gas thrown by Mark, and even he joined in. Caught up in the melee and the outpouring of aggression. Everyone with a grudge. With a need to vent, and that aggression got worse. Fat lips. Cut faces. Arms bruised and cut. They weren't alpha types. Not gym-goers. They didn't throw punches. They threw things. Objects. Using that distance to inflict harm until it became tactical, with Dean's side falling back to take cover as the room split in two.

‘Grab that end,' Dean shouted, pushing a section of heavy metal shelving towards the middle. A couple of his side jumped in and helped, while others threw missiles to keep Liam's side suppressed. ‘This is our side,' Dean shouted.

‘THAT'S NOT THE FUCKING MIDDLE,' Kathy yelled back and grabbed her own set of shelves. The others helped heave it over to slam into Dean's wall, and the night wore on with the two walls formed up and fought over, with missiles lobbed, and poles jabbed through the gaps.

* * *

‘You can see the older blood marks on the shelving units,' Reginald says, pointing over to the sections of the wall, ‘and the missiles left on the ground. Both sides have opened and used first aid kits, and look at the bodies, they've got bandages and dressings from fights that took place before the end came. No, this wasn't an instant thing. This built up as they festered in the heat and dark, but when it started, it couldn't stop, and I fear the worst was when they realised the positioning of the doorway giving access to the rear of the shop.'

* * *

‘The staffroom,' Liam gasped. Seeing the door to the back was on Dean's side. The staffroom was the bathroom. It had the toilet. The sinks. The running water. The keys to the front door were in the back too. ‘Quick! Kathy, Alison, cover us. Lads, grab that shelf…'

‘Wankers!' Dean shouted out, seeing Liam moving fast, ‘They're going for the bathroom.'

They grabbed their own shelving and started pushing it over. Quickly clashing with the other side. Both heaving hard. Giving it everything they had, but Liam had moved first and gained ground, and was past the bathroom door. All he had to do now was defend his position and hold his ground, and such was the heat of the battle that none of his side even considered using the chance to simply go through the door and get away.

‘PUSH!' Dean yelled. They had to have the door to the bathroom on their side. ‘Hang on,' he muttered and ran off into the dark aisles.

‘Where you going?' Kev called out as they pushed and heaved without success. Then Dean came back with a Nordic walking pole, and it took a few seconds for the others to see he'd taped a long-bladed knife to the end.

‘Jesus, Dean,' Colin said. The harsh reality striking home.

‘It's only a little jab,' Dean said and made them pull the next section of the wall back so he could lean out and thrust the end of the pole into Liam's group on the other side.

‘FUCK!' Ash cried out, cut on the arm with blood spurting out.

‘DEAN, NO!' Liam shouted as Tyrone fell back, stabbed in the leg and shouting in pain and shock.

‘FUCK OFF THEN,' Dean yelled, pushing the pole at them as they retreated. Screaming out in horror as Karl was slashed across his back. ‘PUSH IT NOW,' Dean shouted, and his side heaved the wall over, past the bathroom door while Dean kept Liam's side at bay.

Kathy rallied fast. Grabbing a metal dustbin lid to use as a shield while launching missiles at Dean. Liam joined in. Alison and Tom the same, but by the time Dean withdrew, the wall was firmly in place, and they'd lost the door to the back.

* * *

‘I should imagine both sides drew back at that point,' Reginald says as they look to see the last section of wall at the back has been strengthened and wedged in place, ‘but the damage had been done. Blood had been drawn, and there was no going back. Blowers, you asked why they didn't just leave, and the simple answer is they couldn't. The front door is solid, and for them, it would have been inward opening. Even Clarence struggled to break it in, so without the keys, they wouldn't have stood a chance. And I should imagine the keys are by the back door which they couldn't get to. So, you see, they couldn't leave. That alone is bad enough, but the water and food are also all stored on the left side. They'd got the wall up, but in so doing, the right side gave all the power to the left, and I dread to think what it must have felt like to be without water in this heat.'

* * *

To say it was desperate was an understatement. Liam's side quickly gathered up the water after the huge battle, but a lot of it was used to clean wounds and injuries. Plus, they'd fought and ran about for hours in crushing humid heat.

It ran out in less than a day.

The cut on Ash's arm was getting infected, and Karl was getting feverish. He'd lost blood from being slashed on the back, plus, the shock and lack of light were all taking their toll on his weakened body.

‘We need to drink in this heat,' Tyrone said. He looked to Liam as though expecting a solution, but there was simply none to give. They had all the clothing, tents, batteries, and equipment on their side, but none of the things needed to stay alive. They looked at the front door but realised it was too thick to break through.

‘We can break the windows,' Ash said, ‘I know they're toughened, but, you know, if we all just go at them…'

They eased the sheets back to look out and saw the infected outside, covered in blood, and quickly realised the outside was more dangerous than the inside.

‘We'll fucking stab you if you touch the windows,' Dean called out, having seen the light coming through the sheets.

So they did nothing, because there was nothing they could do, and being unable to see Dean and the others only heightened the sense of paranoia and the feeling of being trapped.

‘Dean?' Liam called out that night. Standing close to the wall, ‘Mate, listen…that got messed up but…'

‘Go fuck yourself,' Dean said.

‘We need water,' Liam said and looked up at Dean's head looming over the wall, ‘Please. Mate, it's so hot, and Karl's sick…'

Dean nodded and took a big glug from a bottle of water, then spat it at Liam as a peal of laughter sounded out from behind him, ‘There you go, mate, happy now?'

Dean's side wouldn't budge. They wouldn't reason either, and the air grew hot and listless. They listened to Dean and his group laughing as they showered and splashed water about. Eating noisily and throwing empty cans and empty bottles over. Karl was shivering, and Ash's arm had swelled up.

It was worse the next morning. The heat of the night made them sweat and lose vital fluids. They had headaches. They felt sick, and the thirst within them became an obsession.

‘Dean…we'll die,' Liam begged at the wall, crying without tears, because he had no fluids to give.

‘And?' Dean asked as his side, all laughed again.

‘Please,' Liam said, ‘This is murder.'

‘Fuck you. It's the end of the world. Nobody gives a shit,' Dean said, then appeared at the top, grinning down at Liam, ‘Tell you what, give us Alison, and we'll give you water. Deal?'

Liam looked for humour, for a joke, for jest, but there was none there. Dean was serious. 'No,' he whispered, appalled at the idea.

‘Fair enough,' Dean said with a grin and disappeared. Liam begged again. He got down on his knees and pleaded. They threw things at him. They laughed and jeered.

‘Allie for water, that's a fair deal,' Dean said, ‘You can have her back after. Like, we're not keeping her forever.'

‘Nah, not forever,' Kev said, ‘We'll even take Kathy if she puts a bag over her ugly face…'

The day wore on. Hot and awful. Karl got worse. Sleeping fitfully and crying out. Tom gave comfort. They all did, but Karl needed fluids, not soothing words.

‘How long can we last without water?' Kathy asked.

‘Three days normally,' Ash said, all of them experienced in such things from working in an outdoors shop. ‘But not in this heat,' he added quietly.

‘Maybe another day,' Liam said, and that was it. The raw truth. They would die within a day or two without water.

‘Hey, Allie,' Dean called out later. ‘I just had an amazing shower. Like, you know, it was so cold and refreshing,' he stopped talking to drink noisily, followed by a loud belch, ‘Ah, that was nice. You can come over for a drink if you want.'

‘Come on, Allie,' Kev said.

‘Come for some water,' Mark called.

They sounded sincere and kept it up for hours. They dribbled water over the floor so Liam's side could hear it.

Alison looked at Karl. At his pale, drawn features. His lips already cracked. Everyone else getting that way. Ash was getting sick too. His arm was getting more inflamed by the hour, but the worst thing was the thirst. It became the only thing they thought about. A nagging urge inside that grew until it was like they'd entered another plane of existence where drinking was the only thing that mattered. ‘Maybe I should go over,' she said.

‘No,' Kathy replied quickly.

‘We'll die,' Alison said.

‘I'd rather die,' Kathy said.

‘It's not just us, Kath.'

‘Don't,' Liam said, and they fell silent, but Alison’s words, although whispered and quiet, still travelled over the wall.

Liam's side heard the scraping a short while later as Dean and his group eased sections of the wall back to create the demarcation zone.

‘We need to end this war,' Dean called out, ‘Liam, as your side's representative, you are invited to negotiate, and you may bring one other with you. But not Kathy cos she's fucking nuts.'

‘Bring Allie,' Kev called.

Liam went with Tyrone, but only after they signed an agreement pushed through a gap between two sets of shelves.

‘No weapons will be carried during negotiations, and both sides agree to non-abusive bilateral discussions to end the war,' Liam read it out, his voice dry and broken.

‘War?' Tyrone whispered, looking at Liam, ‘This isn't a war.'

They went through to see Dean and Kev at the table. Mark, Adam, and the others were on their own side, but close and ready to react, and now all armed with spears and weapons.

‘Now, we understand this is a negotiation, so we have proposed a rota system,' Dean said as though discussing normal staffing issues. ‘Just like you did with the cleaning,' he added and placed a sheet of paper on the table with the words Sex Rota For Submission written across the top and all their names down the side. Each one a different day with Alison's name inked alongside each at differing points.

‘We'll have one day each,' Dean said, ‘Alison comes over for half an hour, and the recipient of the sexual intercourse then provides her with water and food for your side. Listen, we're doing this to help you. We're not your enemies here, and I promise that Alison will not be harmed.'

* * *

‘It's still on the table,' Reginald says, making them all look over to see a blood-spattered sheet of paper marked Sex Rota For Submission, and Alison's name written next to the others on the list, ‘That's what happens when power is left unchecked, and there is nobody to oppose it.'

‘Jesus,' Howie says as Marcy frowns, thinking Reginald is only making it worse, and if anything, she's starting to agree with Howie. Why fight for people who do this?

* * *

Neither Liam or Tyrone needed to explain what Dean had said during the negotiations. The others had heard it all. Every word, and even the last bit when Dean said Kathy could do the last one if Alison got tired, but only if her hands were tied behind her back. They even said Alison could then have a day off before doing it again.

Alison felt compelled to do it. She had to. She was so thirsty, and the others were too. All of them suffering, and Karl was getting worse. ‘They said I wouldn't be hurt,' she pointed out.

Liam felt wretched and broken. The thought of it made him feel sick inside, and despite that awful, terrible thirst, he knew it just couldn't happen. It was too wrong. The morals of it. The ethics, but then, in his mind, he was still clinging to the societal values from the old world. That somehow there would be an intervention or at least a consequence. But the reality was fast hitting home that neither of those things would take place.

Alison started getting to her feet, but the others did too. Even Karl. He swayed and looked ready to die, but he shook his head. Not a word was said. Not a single sound made, but the decision was taken together.

‘We'll all die,' Alison mouthed. The words but a whisper and no more. Karl limped towards her, helped by Tom. He put an arm around her shoulders as the others moved in close. All of them filthy and stinking, with matted hair and grimy faces, but they moved into a huddle and held each other. The contact giving them all strength as Kathy produced a knife and held the blade to her wrist. There was a way out, and it meant they kept their dignity too. Liam nodded. Tyrone and Ash followed suit. Tom held Alison's hand, and somehow it was right. The closeness between them. The bond like a promise not to become what the others were. To choose death together.

'Tomorrow,' Liam mouthed, the others nodded. The decision was made. 'I wish we'd broken that fucking window now,' he whispered. Tyrone snorted a laugh. Ash grinned, and they set each other off with near-silent laughter bubbling up from inside. Laughter that had no right to be in such a dark and awful place. But it still came. It hurt them to laugh. It hurt their heads, but they couldn't stop it. None of them suggested breaking the window now. They were too weak anyway.

Then, in the dead of night, while the others lay gasping and hallucinating. Tom silently took a climbing rope, threw it over an exposed joist, stood on a chair, put a bag over his head, and hung himself. His thirst and the terrible expectation of death having driven him to the point of suicide.

* * *

‘That young man was a suicide, not a murder,' Reginald says, pointing over to the right side and the lad hanging, ‘There's no sign of a struggle anywhere near the point of hanging. And the chair he used is on its side which indicates he kicked it over, rather than someone pulling it from under him, and I would suggest that death was the catalyst that brought the end.'

* * *

The smell woke Karl. The pungent stench of shit that came from Tom when his muscles relaxed, and the last few dregs of sludge dripped down the back of his legs and gently spattered the floor near Karl's head. He looked up and thought he was dreaming of an angel flying above him, until his vision cleared.

‘What the…no…no…NO!' he lurched up, the pain and thirst instantly forgotten from the shock as adrenalin pumped into his system. Giving him the strength to grasp Tom's legs and lift him up as though he would save him, ‘TOM! NO! Please…please…'

The others woke. The whole room woke. Dean and his side snapped awake from the awful blood-curdling screams coming from Karl as he held the legs of his best friend, and that adrenalin coursed deep and strong as the rage ignited inside that this was happening. A shy man. A quiet man. An introvert, but the slow-burning wrath of a quiet man can be a greater danger than all else, and he spun about. His eyes ablaze. His face a mask of fury. 'DEAN!' he roared out with a huge voice. His own body so very close to death. 'DEAN!' he roared again, and never before had Liam or any of them seen such angry seething violence as Karl snatched Kathy's knife up and ran at the wall.

‘KARL!' Liam shouted, but the man moved fast. His fury and rage pushing his mind past the pain searing in his back and that awful thirst.

‘What's going on?' Colin shouted, his mind spinning from waking so quickly.

‘Tom's hung himself,' Dean said, peering over the wall, ‘Oh fuck! Karl's coming…HE'S GOT A KNIFE…KARL…DON'T! I SAID DON'T…'

‘DEAN,' Karl screamed and hit the wall, heaving one end out to get through as the others ran about in panic, snatching spears and weapons up.

‘KARL!' Ash yelled and grabbed an ice axe from the shelf.

‘Shit,' Liam went after him, then ran back to grab another axe as the others snatched what they could. Kathy grabbing the dustbin lid and a knife. The rage from Karl seemingly spreading out. Touching them all. Flushing them full of adrenalin and energy as they screamed out and charged. They were ready to die anyway. Ready to end it. But seeing Tom dead and Karl's rage whipped them up.

‘FUCK, FUCK, FUCK,' Dean shouted, ‘THEY'RE COMING…'

‘Stop!' Colin called out as the section of wall in front of him heaved in from Karl pushing through, ‘Karl! Stop it…mate, stop it!'

Karl didn't stop. He couldn't stop. He ran at Colin and plunged the knife into his gut, and ripped it out so hard it gouged a hole big enough for Colin's entrails to fall out. Tim panicked and threw his spear which embedded in Karl's chest, but the man hardly felt it, and he ran forward with the spear sticking from his front. Dean threw his spear that hit Karl too, just as Karl slashed out at Tim, cutting him deep across the face. Tim fought back. Terrified and screaming as Kev ran over and stabbed Karl through the eye with a knife.

Then the others hit the wall. All of them charging in through the gap made by Karl. Liam in the front, stabbing down at Tim with an ice axe. Tyrone helping him. The two lads flailing Tim to chunks within seconds.

Kathy went for Kev. Her dustbin lid shield deflecting the spear Kev thrust in. Adam ran in from her blind spot and stabbed her in the side. She cried out and smashed him away with the lid. Sending him over to Ash and Alison who stabbed him down. Cutting him over and over.

‘Kathy, no! It was a fucking joke,' Kev cried out, backing away from Kathy's pure fury radiating out that instantly robbed the power he thought he had. ‘I'm sorry! I'm sorry…' he backed up into the wall as she came in fast, clubbing him in the face with the lid, then stabbing him in the gut over and over. He went down screaming, with Kathy hammering him down. The lad just in his shorts from sleeping that were yanked down as Kathy flung the lid aside, grabbed his dick and cut it off a second before Dean stabbed her in the back.

Mark tried to run but was taken down by Ash, the two of them crashing through the tents on the left side. Both stabbing at each other. Liam, Tyrone, and Alison ran over. All three of them setting about Mark with knives and sticks, and axes. Ash died as Mark was hacked to bits.

That's when Dean turned and ran before gasping from something slamming into his back. His legs buckled. He tried to rise, feeling the spear stuck in his back and reached back to pull it free. Crying out from the pain as he turned to see Liam, Tyrone, and Alison all staring at him. All three drenched in blood.

‘No…no…Liam…LIAM!' he screamed out as they walked in, and he screamed out as they ripped his shorts off and stabbed him with knives, and he screamed out more when they bound his hands behind his back, threw a rope over an exposed joist, put a bag over his head, and lifted him up by the neck. His legs kicking. His body spasming. His blood spattering down on the floor beneath him until he fell silent, still, and dead.

* * *

‘This was not a petty squabble,' Reginald says, his voice commanding. His whole manner animated with a passion that makes their hearts beat harder as they listen, ‘This was one group defending against another group who wished to prey on them. Look at the way the bodies have fallen. Read the signs. Gosh, no. This wasn't a petty fight, Mr Howie. This is what we are doing. This is good versus evil, and the only thing evil needs to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Nothing, Mr Howie! And they did not do nothing. No, sir. They rose up. They fought back. They said no to tyranny and rape, and yes, some died doing it, but they died for freedom, and do you know what else? I count more sleeping bags than bodies. Mo, Dave. Would you go through to the back and see if there is an open rear access point, please.'

Howie nods, confirming the order as the two rush off across the room while everyone else looks about with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective.

‘Boss,' Mo Mo shouts from the back. ‘We got an open back door with track marks leading out,' he reappears with Dave. Both with pistols drawn.

‘How many?' Howie asks.

‘Three got out, Mr Howie,' Dave replies, ‘One female and two males. They were all running.'

‘Three escaped,' Reginald says, ‘One of the women got away with two of her friends who fought for her right to life.'

‘Or, she was chased out,' Howie says.

‘Dave said they were in a line,' Mo says, ‘Like all helping each other, you get me?'

A change in the room. In the energy they all feel as Reginald speaks softly, ‘If we only look for the dark, Howie, we will only see the dark. We must not do that. As hard as it is. As hard as it gets, we must not do that. Do not let this undermine what we are doing. We are still righteous, and our species is still worth fighting for.'

Howie nods, listening intently before turning to walk out, ‘Fair one. People are still fuckwits though. Load up, we're moving out…'

He steps out, blinking once from the daylight, then once more at the sea of bodies littering the road as he frowns and scratches his head, ‘Were they here when we arrived?'

‘Who?' Paula asks, coming out and stopping at his side. ‘Oh. No, they weren't,' she says, looking over to Blinky covered in blood and holding an axe in the middle of them all, her chest heaving with a huge grin stretching from ear to ear, ‘You okay, Blinky?'

‘Yes, sir, Miss Paula, sir,' Blinky says, offering a salute, ‘Some zombies came.'

‘Not zombies,' Reginald says, picking his way through the mess, ‘Right, now, do come along. We have much to do.'

Five

A nd so the planet spins on at a thousand miles an hour, forever tumbling through the void of space while a few streets over, in a tumbledown house at the edge of a woods, a young woman carries three mugs of steaming black tea to a table in an overgrown garden and smiles sadly at the two young men sitting there. All of them cut and hurt badly, but at least they're not thirsty.

She sits down silently and turns her face to the sun, and breathes clean, untainted air while feeling the natural warmth of daylight.

Liam and Tyrone sit either side of her. Quiet lads. Shy lads. Not alpha types. Not gym-goers, but there's something different about them all now. Something has changed within their eyes, something harder.

They sip the tea, each wincing at the pain as they remember the others and what they endured. A silence between them where nothing needs to be said.

‘I wish I'd broken that window,' Liam mutters after a few seconds. Tyrone snorts. Alison grins, and the soft laughs come. The soft laughs that have no right to be there, and that may, at any given second, give way to weeping.

A noise. An engine. Deep and throaty. They startle and start rising. Another engine. Vehicles stopping. Doors opening. Voices. They share nods and grab their weapons. Knives and ice axes, and start for the end of the garden that leads out into the woods.

‘Don't be alarmed,' a male voice, not threatening. They reach the end gate as a man appears at the side of a house carrying an assault rifle. Dark, curly hair. Soldiers behind him, and a woman at his side, ‘It's okay…I'm Howie, this is Paula…we tracked you from the camping shop.'

They pause at the gate. Ready to flee. The three of them pale and drawn. Dressings on arms and legs, showing spots of blood already soaking through.

‘We have a medic,' Howie says as Roy pushes to the front with his big, red bag. ‘There's no threat. I promise,' Howie pauses, detecting the fear in them. ‘You did well,' he says, and the tears prick their eyes as men and women in uniforms come gently forward, ‘We're on your side…we're here to help.'

Also by RR Haywood

A Town Called Discovery

The #1 Amazon Time Travel Thriller

A man falls from the sky. He has no memory.

What lies ahead are a series of tests. Each more brutal than the last, and if he gets through them all, he might just reach A Town Called Discovery.

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EXTRACTED SERIES

EXTRACTED

EXECUTED

EXTINCT

Blockbuster Time-Travel

#1 Amazon US

#1 Amazon UK

#1 Audible US & UK

Washington Post & WSJ Best-seller

In 2061, a young scientist invents a time machine to fix a tragedy in his past. But his good intentions turn catastrophic when an early test reveals something unexpected: the end of the world.

A desperate plan is formed. Recruit three heroes, ordinary humans capable of extraordinary things, and change the future.

Safa Patel is an elite police officer, on duty when Downing Street comes under terrorist attack. As armed men storm through the breach, she dispatches them all.

'Mad' Harry Madden is a legend of the Second World War. Not only did he complete an impossible mission—to plant charges on a heavily defended submarine base—but he also escaped with his life.

Ben Ryder is just an insurance investigator. But as a young man he witnessed a gang assaulting a woman and her child. He went to their rescue, and killed all five.

Can these three heroes, extracted from their timelines at the point of death, save the world?

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THE WORLDSHIP HUMILITY

#1 Audible bestselling smash hit narrated by Colin Morgan, star of Merlin & Humans.

#1 Amazon bestselling Science-Fiction

“A rollicking, action packed space adventure…”

“Best read of the year!”

“An original and exceptionally entertaining book.”

“A beautifully written and humorous adventure.”

Sam, an airlock operative, is bored. Living in space should be full of adventure, except it isn’t, and he fills his time hacking 3-D movie posters.

Petty thief Yasmine Dufont grew up in the lawless lower levels of the ship, surrounded by violence and squalor, and now she wants out. She wants to escape to the luxury of the Ab-Spa, where they eat real food instead of rats and synth cubes.

Meanwhile, the sleek-hulled, unmanned Gagarin has come back from the ever-continuing search for a new home. Nearly all hope is lost that a new planet will ever be found, until the Gagarin returns with a code of information that suggests a habitable planet has been found. This news should be shared with the whole fleet, but a few rogue captains want to colonise it for themselves.

When Yasmine inadvertently steals the code, she and Sam become caught up in a dangerous game of murder, corruption, political wrangling and...porridge, with sex-addicted Detective Zhang Woo hot on their heels, his own life at risk if he fails to get the code back.

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THE UNDEAD SERIES

THE UK’s #1 Horror Series

Available on Amazon & Audible

“The Best Series Ever…”

The Undead. The First Seven Days

The Undead. The Second Week.

The Undead Day Fifteen.

The Undead Day Sixteen.

The Undead Day Seventeen

The Undead Day Eighteen

The Undead Day Nineteen

The Undead Day Twenty

The Undead Day Twenty-One

The Undead Twenty-Two

The Undead Twenty-Three: The Fort

The Undead Twenty-Four: Equilibrium

Blood on the Floor

An Undead novel

Blood at the Premiere

An Undead novel

The Camping Shop

An Undead novella

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